Wow... F@nboys. Now there's a name I haven't heard in a while. That shit was great. Is he actually updating occasionally these days?

I... really don't know what to think about Wii U. It's completely insane, except that Nintendo has been experimenting with both touchscreen technology and separate-screen controllers. Remember the GBA link cable? I don't think that thing ever caught on, but I guess they liked the idea enough to make it the focus of their first "HD" console.

And they have to know the Wii U is a ridiculous name. They have to. I think they're doing it on purpose; naming it something so goofy that it's going to get people talking about the name. Free word-of-mouth advertising!

I am skeptical, along with the majority of the Internet, apparently.

... was I supposed to comment on the comic? It's cute.

Anime is kind of like fish in that it is better the less "fishy" it is.

Oh, the comic is just something that popped into my mind, and I thought I'd make and post it, cuz I don't post here enough. Yeah, Fanboys is updating again!

I don't really think the Wii U is as batshit as it first appears. There was so much emphasis on the controller, but the controller's only...well, the controller. It's otherwise a fairly traditional console setup with a TV display, which means you have 2 screens, one of which is a touch screen. It's a fair bit like the DS. If devs remember that, and remember what we've learned from DS games when starting to make Wii U games, then it shouldn't be all that impossible to start off by making decent games--even games that are an improvement over what was there before.

Mind you, I don't think every game that was good for the DS will be good for the Wii U, and I think the Wii U will have strengths that the DS doesn't (as one obvious example, the screens are bigger, which means more information can be displayed at once; also, games should be able to hold more information than DS carts). So it will take some time for devs to figure out how to make the best games on the Wii U. But at least we shouldn't have that dead area at launch (as we did with the DS and Wii) when devs had no fucking idea what to DO with the thing.

Personally, I'm kind of interested in seeing a game with multiple input types. The Wii experimented a very little with different players taking on different jobs (Zak and Wiki, Mario Galaxy 1/2), but the input method was the same (wiimote). If Wii U games can use Wii controllers as well as the tablets, then you can have, say, an FFCC ripoff where your mage classes cast spells using the tablet (a la DS games Tao's Adventure, Lost Magic) and your melee fighters use simple wiimote gestures (a la Wii games MadWorld, No More Heroes). I'm not sure how well they will be taken, all in all, but we might get a few interesting little niche or downloadable titles.

I'm mostly concerned about the transferral of VC and WiiWare games, and the fact that the Wii U is not GameCube compatible. I'm not interested in rebuying VC, WW, and GC games, or keeping around 2 Nintendo machines.

Actually, speaking of different input methods for different players, one of the tech demos I saw had five people playing a hide and seek minigame. The seekers all had wiimotes + chucks and were each looking at their characters in splitscreen on the TV. The hider controlled her character via the touchsscreen controller thing, and got a head start to find a hiding spot before the other characters entered the stage. A relatively simple application, but neat, and it shows that they're at least thinking about the idea of multiplayer using different input methods.

Anime is kind of like fish in that it is better the less "fishy" it is.

Did we forget it's called the Wii? I'm pretty sure the thread mocking that one is still around, posts don't decay very quickly around here anymore.

Also, I'm surprised something like a screen-separated tech got picked for an educational purpose in a nation such as Japan, where the schoolwise perception is more "we sink or swim all together." You'd think that something that enables individuals to "catch up" in a more private fashion runs a little counter to that kind of value. The times, they are a-changing!

"You haven't told me what I'm looking for.""Anything that might be of interest to Slitscan. Which is to say, anything that might be of interest to Slitscan's audience. Which is best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, Laney, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections." --Colin Laney and Kathy Torrance, William Gibson's Idoru

Yeah, and "Wii" was a pretty ridiculous name, too. And it also gave them some free publicity from people talking about the weirdness of the name. We've acclimated to it now, but that doesn't mean it wasn't weird when it was news. And just because they've done it again doesn't mean Wii U isn't a weird name. It's just less unexpected this time around.

I actually hadn't heard anything about Wii U being considered for use in education in Japan. Got a link, perhaps? I could just Google it but I need to leave for work in... now.

Anime is kind of like fish in that it is better the less "fishy" it is.

Wasn't that....wasn't that its purpose? I thought its design was to be an educational tool. Hence, the U part of the name. Am I thinking of some other news thing?

edit: Wow, apparently I totally was thinking about something else. Consider my entry in this discussion retracted while I readjust my paradigms.

"You haven't told me what I'm looking for.""Anything that might be of interest to Slitscan. Which is to say, anything that might be of interest to Slitscan's audience. Which is best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, Laney, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections." --Colin Laney and Kathy Torrance, William Gibson's Idoru